InnoWiser

At its core, what purpose does any innovation serve? Whom does it benefit? And at what cost? Answers to these questions is: “It depends.” And of course, it does. Depends on what the innovation is, what it is designed to solve, how users of innovation respond to it, what it takes to propagate it, etc.

I love innovation in most forms. I enjoy dissecting them, finding uses, abuses, utility and such. But there are some that make me go: OMGWTF?! [If you knew instantly what it meant, you may not empathize with me unless you are a purist.]

Wall St. Journal had a story yesterday on LeetSpeak. Or L33t5p34K, so to say. It goes on to say:

THOu9H g@iL k3Rn P4$T3r, +H3 D1REC+OR 0PH +H3 fOl9Er
$H4Ke5P3@Re LiBR4Ry 1n w4$H1n9t0N, h@$ 50mE M1591v1N95 48oU+ Th3 ri53 Of 1ntErN3+ 5L4n9 $UcH @$ Le3T5Pe4k, 5HE +h1nk5
5H4K3$p3@RE wOulD 4ppl@UD I+.

…5He tHiNk5 $h4k3Sp34r3 WOuLD APpr0VE of lE3t5P3@K. “H3 WOUlD 54Y, ‘BRIn9 i+ ON, 4b50luT3LY,’” she Say$.

+h3 R34s0n I$ Th4t $H4Ke$pe4r3 INTRODuC3D CoUN+LES5 nEW
WOrd5 4nD exPre$$iON$ iN+O +H3 3Ngl15H l4n9U49e +hr0u9h h1s
pL4YS, $he $4Y5. “+He i$5Ue 0F coRreCtne55 d1dn’+ 8oth3r HIm,” Sh3 54y$. “HE lOVed +0 pl@Y wi+h L@n9u49e.”

For those who have trouble reading it, here it is, in plain-speak English.

Though Gail Kern Paster, the director of the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, has some misgivings about the rise of Internet slang such as leetspeak, she thinks Shakespeare would applaud it.

…she thinks Shakespeare would approve of leetspeak. “He would say, ‘Bring it on, absolutely,’” she says.

The reason is that Shakespeare introduced countless new words and expressions into the English language through his plays, she says. “The issue of correctness didn’t bother him,” she says. “He loved to play with language.”

Now I don’t know about you, but I found it exceedingly difficult to decode the leetspeak beyond the first line. I suspect Shakespeare himself wouldn’t have been able to read it. And that just may be the point. Wikipedia, the source of all online knowledge, calls leetspeak a slang, primarily used on the Internet having evolved from online video games. The term “leet” is a derivative of “elite”, the status of some accomplished game players from whom this coded language has evolved, perhaps to distinguish from other, non-elite, non-leetspeakers, perhaps the l00zrz.

Is this a linguistic innovation? I certainly think so. There is certainly a novelty aspect to it although it has been evolving for the last 20 odd years. It is a cultural change from the norm of standard written English, and for what it is worth, it does seem to serve the purpose of vaguely encoding standard English and distinguishing the leetspeakers from non-leetspeakers, or newbs. (I confess to being a newb in this matter, though not a n00b, I hasten to add. See Wikipedia for the difference.)

You may or may not agree with the innovation aspect, but consider what Anthony Mitchell, in an opinion piece, says: “Leet has outgrown its roots as an obscure communication system for bulletin board users and has become a broad cultural phenomenon….. New forms of leet are encouraged. Leet users often disregard standards and reward innovation. Leet is adding new vocabulary and transpositions that are harder to decipher…”. A-ha.

Now, I understand that most languages are living entities. They evolve over time. Some, like English, have an ever expanding vocabulary, adapting to changing times and are the better for it. Consider the difficulties of translating words like blog in French or Swedish. Others, like Latin and Sanskrit, are not spoken, and are dying. For any language to stand the test of time, its users must be willing to adopt the changes that it goes through, often accepting and sometimes rejecting, the new words and ideas that are coined. How acceptable are these linguistic evolutions?

Most people who have txt’d will easily recognize the semblance with txting slang and will understand how the txting slang has developed. Txting evolved out of a need to communicate in a 160-character limitation on mobile phones. It has, since then, become a common teen and young adult phenomenon who use it in mails, on their blogs, and even in classroom assignments, much to the consternation of teachers. Perhaps the consternation of adults and teachers is what it’s all about, after all. To which, I say: LOL. There’s fun in that.

Language blog, one that I read from time to time, has an interesting cartoon here (reproduced below). It’s not pure leetspeak, but it does get the point across. Or not. (Maybe that is the point.) [Image: PixelComic]

Perhaps I’m showing my age by quoting Wall St. Journal, my sensitivities in being a language purist, or just plainly the ignorance of evolving cultural norms (or perhaps all three). But I do not understand the utility of this, umm, leet innovation. Is it mainly a generational thing? (I am a Gen-Xer, though sometimes I do feel my parent’s age.) Perhaps I am just not enough of a g4m3r and just don’t get it. But I am genuinely curious and would love to be enlightened.

So what do people think? Is this style of writing helpful? If so, for whom? Is it communicative? Do you speak leet? How do you react when you see a leet mail? Is it the future of our written language?

Wh4+ d0 y0U tH1nK? J01N teh (0nV3r54+10N b3l0w!